Restoring a damaged watershed takes more than one skill set. Someone has to buy or protect the land, someone has to raise money for treatment systems, and someone has to understand the policy and legal framework that governs it all. The Colcom Foundation has spread its support across organizations that cover each of these roles.
Its long-term grantees include Allegheny Land Trust, Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, Pennsylvania Environmental Council, WeConservePA, and the Natural Areas Association. Between them, these six groups handle land acquisition, watershed remediation funding, environmental policy, conservation law, and natural areas stewardship.
Who Does What
The Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds works to foster stewardship for the protection, preservation, and restoration of the state’s water resources. One of its main tools is matching grants. Local groups use those funds to secure state and federal awards for acid mine drainage treatment systems.
Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and Pennsylvania Environmental Council carry out hands-on work: reforestation, riparian planting, and streambank stabilization across the region’s river basins. The Conservancy is also one of the Foundation’s longest-running partners, with projects ranging from the Conservation Blueprint to land protection in the French Creek and Upper Allegheny watersheds.
Within Pittsburgh itself, Colcom Foundation has backed Tree Pittsburgh since 2007, adding annual operating support in 2012.
The Case for Staying Local
The Foundation concentrates its grants on southwest Pennsylvania, including the Pittsburgh metro area and the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Clarion River basins. That focus traces back to where it was established in 1996.
Staying regional allows the Colcom Foundation to fund the same nonprofits over many years instead of scattering grants nationwide. Long relationships give grantees predictable support, and that cumulative funding has leveraged millions more in matched state, federal, and private dollars for restoration.
The arrangement covers nearly every discipline involved in regional habitat restoration. For residents, the payoff appears in cleaner rivers, protected forests, and more trees along city streets. See related link for more information.
Learn more about Colcom Foundation on https://www.guidestar.org/profile/31-1479839